FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT MOLOTOV COCKTAIL - PAGE 3

An Elgin police officer taking part in a program in which he voluntarily lives in a high-crime neighborhood has become the target of someone or some people using Molotov cocktails. A $500 reward has been offered for the arrest and conviction of whoever threw a burning Molotov cocktail onto the squad car of Officer Bill Wolf, 25. Two unlit cocktails were found near the officer's house, police said Friday. The apparent effort to threaten the officer, who lives in the troubled east side neighborhood, is a rare sour note in Elgin's highly successful resident officer program.

Police said they were looking for a motive after someone threw a Molotov cocktail through a window of a home on the 300 block of Slade Avenue about 10:30 p.m. Friday night. A 36-year-old male resident burned his hands and arm while carrying the still-hot bottle to his kitchen sink, police said. There were no other injuries reported, and a small fire which began on carpeting beneath a window on the east side of the home was quickly extinguished by firefighters. Police said someone apparently broke two windows of the home before tossing the bottle inside.

Police were investigating the apparent fire bombing of a home in the 0-99 block of South Park Avenue with a Molotov cocktail. Reports said the homeowner reportedly told police that he heard a crash in his kitchen shortly before midnight Tuesday. Investigating, the owner allegedly found that a burning, 40-ounce beer bottle had been thrown through the kitchen window, igniting the floor. The homeowner reportedly picked up the bottle, threw it outside a window and put out the fire before calling police, reports said.

Harvey police were questioning a third man Friday in connection with the repeated firebombings of a home in the south suburb. Police arrested the man about 6:30 a.m. at a home in South Holland, said Mayor Nickolas Graves. Authorities said the man is suspected of paying Deloco Bevil, 32, and Carl Pate, 44, to firebomb a former girlfriend's house three times. Police arrested Bevil and Pate late Monday after the men allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail through the second-floor window of a home in north Harvey.

The 19-year-old owner of a 1989 Cadillac DeVille destroyed in a car fire Sunday told police he found what appeared to be the remnants of a Molotov cocktail near the car's parking spot in the 400 block of South Street, police said. Firefighters extinguished the fire Sunday, but authorities returned to the scene Monday after the car's owner said he discovered a suspicious bottle while cleaning the fire scene, police said. The man knew of no motive for the fire, police said.

A Chicago police officer has been nominated for a commendation for rescuing a 59-year-old disabled woman from her burning home, police said. Theresa Morris of 8236 S. Exchange Ave. was sitting in her second floor bedroom Thursday evening when someone threw a Molotov cocktail through a first-floor window, said Sgt. Edward O`Donnell of the police bomb and arson unit. Officer Earl Parks Jr., 30, of the South Chicago District, arrived before the Fire Department. When told Morris was still inside, he entered and carried her out, O`Donnell said.

The man who provided the gasoline and the cigarette lighter for the fatal firebombing of a Waukegan home in December was sentenced Friday to 40 years in prison. David Bryant, 20, was the third man to be sentenced in a crime that the judge said wasted at least four lives. Shaquita Lewis, 16, died just after midnight Dec. 7 when a Molotov cocktail was thrown into her Waukegan home as she slept. The intended victim of the crime, her brother Steven, was not home, police said.

Investigators have ruled that arson caused Tuesday's South Side fire that left 35 people homeless and sent one firefighter to the hospital. The blaze, which gutted four homes in the 4800 block of South Racine Avenue, was deliberately set but was not the result of a Molotov cocktail, according to fire chief Stanley Span. Reports that a homemade bomb sparked the fire were strictly rumor, Span said. A firefighter who suffered heat exhaustion was treated and released from the University of Chicago Hospitals.

A firebombing killed a woman and her daughter in a Joliet home Saturday morning after a Molotov cocktail was thrown through a first-floor window, police said. Authorities had no suspects Sunday in the deaths of Lourdes Nunez, 35, and Maray Nunez, 4, who were found upstairs and pronounced dead at the scene in the 400 block of Madeline Street, said Cmdr. Charles Stein. The crime appears to be gang-related, he said. Police officers tried to enter the home but couldn't because the smoke and heat were too intense, Stein said.